nature – Page 4 – Amy's Axons

October 2020

An Unspoiled Autumnal Walk

October 19, 2020October 19, 2020by amysaxons2 Comments

This past Friday I got in the car and drove to an opening in the woods just down the road from our house. Although the spot was less than a quarter mile away, and any other person would have walked, I drove in an effort to reserve as much energy as possible so I could do a bit of exploring. With my trusty cane in my right hand and my camera around my neck, I entered the forest along a well-maintained track. I’d never been to this area before, though I had been planning to check it out since noticing it after we moved earlier this year. The first half of the pictures below are some of the things I discovered. I wish I could share the smell and sound of the leaves crunching beneath my feet; the birds calling and flying in the canopy above; the babbling of the small, mossy spring where dragonflies were sunning themselves; and the joyful feeling that I had stepped out of the real world and into a children’s fantasy book.

These wild turkeys were sunning themselves inside a cleared and fenced off, old, private, family cemetery.

I like to stroll through old cemeteries and imagine what kind of lives the inhabitants had. They lived through the Civil War era and were loved and missed by someone.

I found this old plow laying in another clearing in the middle of the woods. I wonder if it belonged to someone in the cemetery.

Though water from the mouth of the spring was definitely bubbling up from the rocks, it clearly wasn’t in any hurry to go anywhere.

I was lucky my shoe was the only thing that got wet. Wobbly, unbalanced, cane-carrying walkers should not try to walk from rock to rock in order to discover the source of a spring!

Once out of the woods and heading back to the car parked along the road, I noticed this and the following lovelies basking and enjoying the last remaining fruits of the summer.

It was such a beautiful day that I drove to the river and walked on the bridge for a few minutes.

The only cloud in the sky reminded me of a leaping frog.

These guys allowed me to take not only their photo but also snaps of the drone they were figuring out. They were flying that thing absolutely everywhere!

I love the color of these berries. Honeysuckle berries, I think…?

A little family of turtles warming themselves.

I hope you have a chance to enjoy the changing seasons wherever you call home.

God be with you! ❤️, Amy

August 2020

Nature Nurturing

August 4, 2020August 4, 2020by amysaxonsLeave a Comment

We’ve seen the perfect blend of summery sun and rain here in Southwest Missouri this past week. We’re usually roasting in nearly 100*F/38*C by this time in August, but we’ve had gorgeous 77-80*F/21-27*C days. Thanks to the recent weather, nature is lush and bursting with color all over the place around us! The forecast says it will only last another day or two, but it has been a delicious treat while it lasts and a balm for these many months during Covid-19.

A large forested area lies both north and south of our neighborhood with a good sized river about a mile down the road. It has both a well-maintained river access spot and, a little further down the road, an old, reallocated bridge that serves as the entrance for a greenways trail that winds through and circles our city. Additionally, our neighborhood has a little landscaped lake with a walking path, bridge, water feature, bird houses, and a bench along the shore. On Wednesday of this last week MS kindly lent me a decent enough day that I drove to the river in the morning and spent some time soaking in the views from the bridge at the trail’s head. After lunch, I headed off for a lovely, cane-assisted stroll around the lake. There were butterflies everywhere in both places! They somehow managed to lift my spirits on their tiny little wings and carry them about as they soared around and flitted and fluttered here and there. Similarly, as I rested a couple of times on my way around the lake in the afternoon, I found myself smiling as I tried to follow the dizzying courses of dozens of dragonflies going nowhere and everywhere at once. What funny little creatures! Oh, and don’t worry, there are plenty of bird and cat photos below too😻!

This past Friday was an exciting day when…my new camera arrived!!! As you peruse the photos below, see if you can guess which ones I took with my point-and-shoot and which ones were with my new DSLR. The new camera inspired me to branch out and find a new photo editing app to play around with. It’s pretty safe to say I have a lot to learn. As an example, I hadn’t been messing around with the camera for more than five minutes before I realized I needed to invest in a more versatile lens. Some lessons are pricey 😉! No worries though, I am having fun and can’t wait to learn and grow my skills (and lens collection!). It was time for the upgrade because I needed another sit-down hobby to add to my arsenal of things to do when the MS monster has me lashed to the couch.

Speaking of MS, my next Ocrevus infusion is at the end of this month. Let’s see, this will be my second full dose which means I’ve been on it for 18 months. For the first time since starting it I think I’m experiencing the “crap gap” I’ve heard other MSers describe just before their next dose. My already ridiculous fatigue intermixed with poor balance, endurance, gait, bladder issues, clumsiness, sluggish word finding, and occasional cog-fog have all ratcheted up to the next level over the last few days. I hope topping the tank with more O-juice knocks my symptoms back down to the previous notch.

Part I: Riparian and Lakeside Entertainment

Female house finch with Niger all over her beak; steady rain.

I NEVER pass up the opportunity to snap pics of this skittish Red-bellied woodpecker. BONUS: Carolina chickadee 🙂

Suet on the tip of this chickadee’s beak.

Our resident nuthatch. This little thing fascinates me.

Her eyes! Her little whiskers!! Her white undercarriage (as hubby likes to call it)!!!

Her fur feels like crushed velvet and she insists on being held nearly all the time. What’s not to love?!

Not to be outdone, Pip is our resident lap and shoulder snuggler. He has the sweetest disposition and is an absolute riot to play fetch with. He has gorgeous golden eyes and perfectly preposterous ears!!

There’s a reason hubby calls Pip “a tender little guy.” He gives the best snuggles and makes me smile.

Here we are at the end of another blog. I looked back and realized I have been posting weekly lately. I didn’t mean to, or not mean to, it just happened. Will there be another blog next week? Maybe, I guess we will both have to wait and see😁. Either way, I’m glad you stopped by for a look-see. May God be with you! Amy

July 2020

A Week Interrupted

July 17, 2020July 17, 2020by amysaxons2 Comments

There I was having a perfectly good day last Saturday riding around with my hubby as he ran into a couple of stores for our weekly shopping, when all of a sudden I felt a familiar pain in my lower tummy. Within just a few minutes I felt the next stage of an all too familiar urge hit and I knew before we made it home I had a UTI.

Fun Fact: One of the most common symptoms of MS is bladder control problems. The bladder has spasms and won’t empty completely causing frequency and urgency. Because the bladder won’t empty completely, MSers get a UTI very easily.

Anyway, my suspicion was validated at urgent care that same Saturday afternoon and I came home with the usual round of antibiotics and some Azo to ease the pain. I typically feel better within 24 hours, but when things felt worse by Sunday evening I knew we needed to go back to see what was going on.

A kidney infection was what was going on. I got a different script for a stronger antibiotic for the next seven days and then a thigh-full of another one. They warned me it would hurt as they added Lidocaine to the concoction and said it would take about 30-40 seconds to give because it was “thick”. I made it through the shot, but then nearly passed out 🥴. My blood pressure dropped too low very suddenly, I got all sweaty, and felt myself going. No big deal, I recovered and they let me go within another 30 minutes. Passing out was nothing compared to the pain throbbing through my thigh! With hubby dragging me by one arm and my cane propping me up to stay vertical with the other, I limped and whimpered my way to the car and thought, “That shot better be worth it!”

I’ve had lots of UTIs, but this was my first kidney infection; I wasn’t quite ready for how hard it kept hitting and how long it took to feel better. By Wednesday I knew I was going to live and felt back to my normal self on Thursday.

During the time it took to recover, I didn’t do much. I filled the lethargic days by hanging out with and generally loving around on the cats, reading an Inspector Morse mystery, listening to Dickens’ Bleak House, putting some puzzles together on my favorite puzzles app, and sleeping a lot. Finally, on Thursday and Friday, I ventured back out on the patio for short bits in the mornings and evenings – to avoid the heat, another no-no when you have MS – and even managed to muster the energy to sew a cute little tunic with an adorable cat print for myself!

There is a river just a mile and a half down the road from our house with a lovely bridge and trail from which to admire nature. Hubby humoured me and took me for a while around noon on Friday. Though I can’t walk the trail anymore, we traversed the bridge and took in all the special delights that fill the senses when around running water. Birds chirping, breezes blowing, water rippling, the faint whiff of fish in the air, the sight and smell of earth and dirt eroding, tree roots erupting on trails down to the river banks, and the beauty of wildflowers clustered along the banks and in the undergrowth, or definitely blooming in solitary confidence and glory.

It feels so good to feel better! It was a good reminder to appreciate my general health, despite the MS. I’d take a lot of crummy MS days over going through that again any time soon. I hope you enjoy the pictures below and are able to get a sense of their feel and place for the ones not captioned.